Melting Clock tp-16

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  Dali had changed quickly and shaved. He wore a tiger-skin robe from beneath which peeked the collar and the pants legs of pink silk pajamas. In his right hand was a glass with a stem about a foot long. The liquid in the glass was orange.

  I let the Picasso drop back against the wall. Jeremy mused aloud: “Each artist, with rare exceptions, is his own Cassandra, doomed to tell himself the truth and doomed never to understand it. Surrealists say that their work has no meaning. The truth is that they are incapable of seeing what it means, and certainly they are incapable of saying what it means.”

  Dali had been sipping his orange drink when Jeremy began, but stopped almost immediately and then looked at Jeremy without expression.

  “And who shall tell us what it means?” he asked softly.

  “There are many who will tell you, but each has his own key-the Freudian, the Jungian, the Catholic, the Jew, the Marxist. Each has a key to the enigma we create and each is right yet each is only partly right because we ourselves are the only ones who can comprehend the meaning of our work, without words, if we will just look at it.”

  “And why do we not look at it?” asked Dali.

  “Because we are afraid of what we will see,” answered Jeremy. “Sometimes I think artists create so that others may see and the artist need not look.”

  “You are a romantic,” exclaimed Dali, holding his glass up to toast Jeremy.

  I didn’t know what the hell they were talking about, so I said, “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about and I need some sleep.”

  “Tomorrow we shall be busy,” Dali announced. He placed his now-empty glass on a wooden table with a little round platform. The glass just barely fit. “Tomorrow is the celebration of the setting sun, and we shall all be in pagan costume to welcome the first devil’s night of the new year.”

  With that, Dali raised his eyebrows and opened his eyes wide. His mustaches twitching, he turned and disappeared into the hallway.

  “Where’s the kitchen?” I asked.

  “I’ll show you,” said Jeremy.

  There wasn’t much in the refrigerator that appealed to us after we finished the chilled shrimp and each had a large helping of orange juice in mugs shaped like babies’ heads. Jeremy led me to the bedroom after we made the rounds and were sure the house was secure. Locked doors and windows wouldn’t keep a killer out, but they would probably make it a little noisy to break in. We agreed to sleep in shifts, three hours each. Jeremy said he had some reading and wanted to stay up first, pointing out that I looked too tired to take the first shift. He was right.

  There were two beds in the guest room. I washed my face, brushed my teeth with my finger and some Dr. Lyon’s tooth powder Jeremy let me use, took all the stuff out of my pockets and put it on the low dark dresser against the wall, and then took off my clothes and hung them in the closet. Jeremy, fully clothed, sat on one of the beds reading.

  “What’re you reading?”

  “Theodore Spencer,” said Jeremy, “Listen:

  The pulse that stirs the mind,

  The mind that urges bone,

  Move to the same wind

  That blows over stone.”

  “Sounds nice,” I said, scratching my thigh through my underwear.

  “I’ll read it to Alice tomorrow,” he said. “It’s part of a longer work. If you like, I’ll go in the other room to read.”

  “Don’t bother. I’ll be asleep in a minute. My problem’s not getting to sleep, it’s staying there.”

  And I was right. All I had to do was close my eyes and try to make sense out of what had happened in the last three days. I thought about Gregory Novak. I might even have said the name, but that was about all I did think or say before I fell asleep.

  I dreamed of Gala in the kitchen singing “The World Is Mine Tonight” and making flapjacks on the griddle. She was wearing a frilly apron and doing her best to look like Betty Crocker. I was waiting for the flapjacks when Dali came in wearing overalls, a plaid shirt, and a straw hat.

  “They’re almost ready to harvest,” he said, sitting at the table and grinning at me. He pointed to the window.

  I got up and looked over the shoulder of the busy, singing Gala. The sun was white bright but I could see the shore-along the beach, in the sand, clocks were in bloom, black clocks just like the one in the other room. Music was coming from inside the house, dark music.

  “Blood makes them grow,” Dali said behind me.

  And now I could see that the sand around each clock was red.

  I woke up. Jeremy was sitting in the same position, still reading, but he was at the end of the book.

  “Time is it?” I asked blearily.

  “Four-thirty,” he said. “I’ve checked the doors twice. I wasn’t sleepy.”

  “I’m up now.” I sat up. “Get some sleep.”

  I was awake but I could still hear the dark music.

  “What is that?”

  “Bach,” said Jeremy. “A fugue for organ. I think Dali uses it for background music while he paints.”

  “Why not?” I got out of bed and almost crashed into the wall when my leg refused to hold my weight. I managed to steady myself by grabbing hold of the headboard.

  “Would you like the book?” asked Jeremy.

  “No, thanks,” I said, making it to the closet. “I’m going to see if I can find some coffee.”

  Jeremy took off his shoes, removed his clothes, and put on a pair of clean pajamas that had been folded neatly in the small suitcase he had brought.

  “Wake me no later than nine,” he instructed, lying back and closing his eyes.

  “We’ll see how it goes,” I said, slipping on my shoes. “You can turn off the light.”

  And he did.

  I made my way into the kitchen. It was empty but I could still hear the organ. In fact, it made the floor reverberate under my feet. I didn’t find coffee or cereal. There was a loaf of bread. I went into an enclosed deck on the sea-side of the house, opened the window so I could hear the surf, and sat in a straightbacked chair with the bread and glass of water. The sun rose somewhere over the Rockies and hit the shore. The view was great. We were on a ridge about fifty yards from the beach. The weeds were below the ridge and a sandy path led down just outside the window. Gulls swooped and sat on something near the shore that looked like a big chair.

  “It’s a throne,” said Dali, looming up behind me. “I shall tell my guests tonight that it is the throne of Cleopatra’s father.”

  I jumped up, my heart beating like a combination by Henry Armstrong.

  “You scared the shit out of me,” I remonstrated.

  “It is the fate of man since clothing was invented to embarrass us that we should soil ourselves,” he said. “In fear, in passion, in disgrace. It is a concern that only humans have, particularly fathers.”

  Dali was wearing the same tiger-skin robe and pink silk pajamas. He had one of those long-stemmed glasses in each hand. He handed me one.

  “Orange juice,” he said. “From my cache of fruit.”

  I took it and drank.

  “Good stuff,” I said.

  “Today we find my stolen painting,” he affirmed.

  “Could be,” I hedged.

  “I saw it in a dream,” he said.

  “When did you sleep?”

  “Here, there, a moment an interrupted dream. I do not need light to paint. The light is in here.”

  He pointed to his head.

  “Like a Mazda bulb,” I said.

  “Precisely. The Impressionists need light from outside, from nature, from the gods. Surrealists get light from inside themselves. They need no gods.”

  “Pretty weighty stuff for dawn,” I said. “This is more Jeremy’s line. Mind if I use the phone?”

  “It is not chilled,” he complained. “There is a phone in the kitchen but I cannot bear to touch it. It sticks to the fingers. Phones should be chilled.”

  “I’ll try not to be too disgusted,” I said. />
  It was almost six on a Monday morning. I called the boarding house, hoping for Gunther. I got Mrs. Plaut on the second ring.

  Before I could say anything, she shouted, “Early, but I don’t care. I had to feed the bird.”

  “Mrs. Plaut, it’s me, Toby Peters. Can you get Gunth-?”

  “Mr. Peelers, the police are an interesting lot, Lord knows, but they spend entirely too much time here looking for you.”

  “The police were there?”

  “Have you been killing people again, Mr. Peelers? I have asked you to stop that manner of behavior.”

  “I’ve never killed anyone, Mrs. Plaut,” I objected. “Can I please speak to-”

  “They asked me about a clock,” Mrs. Plaut went on. “I showed them the Beech-Nut clock on the wall of your room, the grandmother clock in my sitting room, but they were not interested.”

  Dali was now standing in the doorway to the kitchen, empty glass in hand.

  “Gunther Wherthman,” I said loudly, emphatically, to Mrs. Plaut, to no avail.

  “They talked to Mr. Gunther Wherthman also,” she said. “I informed them that if they wanted to apprehend you for murdering more people they would be well advised to go search for you instead of indulging in hobbies.”

  “Allow me,” said Dali, reaching for the phone.

  He had a clean new handkerchief in his hand and took the phone carefully, like a hot-shot evidence man at a crime scene.

  “Senora Plaut?” he asked into the phone. And then he began to jabber away in Spanish, with appropriate pauses to listen. Finally, he said, “Esta bien, gracias.”

  He handed the phone to me and cleaned his hands.

  “She’s getting your Mr. Wherthman,” he said. “I must dry my hands.”

  “Mrs. Plaut can’t speak Spanish,” I said as he threw into the corner the offending handkerchief that had touched an unchilled phone.

  “Her Spanish is flawless,” said Dali. “A bit of the Andalusian but perfect.”

  And he was gone.

  “Toby?” came Gunther’s voice over the phone.

  “I’m here, Gunther.”

  “Police were here. Sergeant Seidman.”

  “Did they see the painting?”

  “No, it is in my room, under the bed. They would not say why they were looking for you.”

  “Fleeing the scene of the crime, absconding with evidence, possibly suspicion of murder.”

  “That is less serious than last time,” he said. “They wish you to come see them immediately. I believe that a police automobile with a red-haired man inside is waiting across the street.”

  “Thanks, Gunther,” I said. “Here’s my number. Don’t write it anywhere.”

  “Be cautious, Toby,” he counseled.

  “I will,” I said. “Did you know Mrs. Plaut speaks Andalusian Spanish?”

  “Yes,” he said. “And a very acceptable French.”

  “Why didn’t I know that?”

  “Toby, you are my closest friend, the closest friend I have ever had and yet you have an inclination to close yourself off from that which will alter your perception of others. Mrs. Plaut is an enigma, not a joke.”

  “I hate art and philosophy, Gunther. And I don’t care all that much for literature.”

  “I know that you believe that, Toby. Please, I did not intend to agitate you.”

  “I’m sorry, Gunther. I don’t really hate art and literature.

  “I know that. Did you get enough sleep last night?”

  At that instant, Gala, a twig in a purple dress reaching to the floor, washed into the room.

  “No,” I said.

  “Off the phone,” Gala ordered.

  I turned my back on her. I had been about to end the conversation, but now I was more than a little inclined to engage Gunther in discussion of Da Vinci, Debussy, or Frankie Sinkwich.

  “Recommend some reading for me, Gunther,” I said.

  “I have a party to arrange for Dali and only twelve hours to complete it,” Gala said. “The phone is required.”

  “I will gladly make a list and let you borrow my books,” said Gunther, “but I would prefer that you not remove them from Mrs. Plaut’s premises.”

  “I’ll talk to you, Gunther,” I said.

  “Be more concerned for your safety,” he answered, and I hung up.

  Gala took the phone from me and motioned for me to get out of the way and out of the kitchen. I left.

  The rest of the day, Jeremy-after I woke him at nine-and I took turns watching the street. A couple of truckloads of caterers arrived around three and took over most of the house. The caterers were all women.

  “This,” declared Dali, who had changed into a white tuxedo with black tie and had come down to tilt his head back and watch the preparation, “must be a night of triumph. The press of the world will be here and I shall find new ways to offend.”

  “Sounds like fun for all,” I said.

  “I must retire to my rooms now.” Dali refused to acknowledge my sarcasm. “It is fatiguing to watch people work and to create offenses.”

  At five, with food everywhere and tables on the beach around the throne, the first guests arrived. No one came to the house. Dali had painted a sign that Gala had personally put up in the sand. The sign read:

  TO THE BEACH FOR SIGHTS DENIED MOST MORTALS

  These first guests, a man and a woman, were wearing clown costumes.

  From the window, Dali observed to me, “No imagination. I shall be dressed from the neck down as a rabbit-a trickster who hops, deceives, and refuses to be contained. And from the neck up, I shall be Sherlock Holmes, who claims to operate from reason and the logic but is really an artist.”

  “Have fun,” I said.

  “And you shall be dressed as …?” Dali inquired.

  “I shall be dressed as Toby Peters, Detective.”

  “There is only room for one detective at this party, and it shall be Salvador Dali. There is a costume for you in your room and one for the poet. Gala picked them. She can see through to the soul.”

  I was about to say no again, but Dali wouldn’t let me get started.

  “No one goes to the shore without wearing a mask of the gods.”

  Depending on what torture Gala had laid out on the bed, it wasn’t such a bad idea to be in some kind of disguise. There wasn’t much chance of the L.A. cops showing up, but there was a chance the killer would come. That chance became a near certainty about ten minutes after the thought hit me.

  The phone rang in the kitchen. Nobody paid attention. I picked it up. Over the clattering of the caterers and Gala’s shouting, a falsetto voice said, “Peters: Tonight, when the sun goes down, the painting will be revealed and Salvador Dali will face his punishment.”

  Whoever it was hung up. I looked around to see if Dali was there or Gala was paying attention. They weren’t.

  I went looking for Jeremy to tell him about the call and found him in the bedroom. He was wearing a toga with a gold rope around his waist.

  “I am to be Plato.”

  “You don’t have to do it, Jeremy.”

  “I don’t mind. When I wrestled, I learned to accept costume and performance.”

  I looked at the other costume on the bed. It was brown with leather shorts and with a little feathered hat, boots and a bow, and a quiver full of arrows.

  “What’s that?”

  “William Tell,” said Jeremy. “You have been honored. William Tell is Dali’s favorite character.”

  “Why?”

  Jeremy shrugged. Somehow, his shrug looked more meaningful in a toga.

  “Tell is the archetypal father whose child’s life is in his hands. The child is dependent on the skill and courage of the father. Life and death, skill and faith. The child’s fate is in the hands of the father.”

  “My knees’ll show,” I said, picking up the shorts.

  “When you wear a bathing suit, they show,” Jeremy said gently.

  “I don’t wear a bat
hing suit. I don’t go to the beach.”

  “Tonight you will,” he reminded me, and I told him about the phone call.

  11

  Even before the sun was fully down there were four fires on the beach, blazes in giant copper pots. Dali supervised each one personally. Jeremy and I watched from the top of the hill where we could see down the beach for about a hundred yards in both directions. Dali was a frantic ball of white fur, cracking orders to hired hands who tended the fires. He ran from pot to pot like a vaudeville juggler trying to keep plates spinning on wobbly sticks.

  In the center of the fiery pots, its heavy legs sinking into the sand, was the throne. Every once in a while Dali paused in his steeplechase to be sure the throne hadn’t gotten up on its legs and dashed into the ocean. Two long tables filled with seafood-lobsters, clams, shrimp, scallops-sat right on the shoreline where the tide was sure to get them in a few hours.

  “I think he plans to let the sea take the food later,” Jeremy said.

  “Looks that way,” I agreed, trying to reach a particularly itchy spot under my William Tell shorts. I couldn’t get at it, so I tried to do it with an arrow. I was reasonably successful.

  The second set of guests arrived: a snail and an orange. Gala, dressed like a Cossack complete with tunic, fur cap, and beard, stood at the top of the sandy trail and pointed them toward the beach. At Gala’s request, Jeremy had carried the big clock outside and it stood next to her.

  After Gala and the clock greeted each guest, they had to go past Jeremy and me, and we stopped them.

  “I’m an orange,” the orange said.

  “I can see that,” I said.

  “Don’t shoot me,” he went on.

  The snail roared with laughter.

  “Get it?” said the snail. “William Tell shoots apples, not oranges.”

  “Sorry,” I said to the orange. “We’ve got to frisk you for contraband.”

  The snail thought this was funny, too, but the orange started to protest.

  “Dali’s orders,” I said with a shrug and a look intended to make them think that it was just another eccentricity of the master.

  I think the orange finally shrugged. I don’t know. The snail, even though she was a lady, was easier to search than the orange. We stood back and watched the couple waddle down the hill. I said, “Jeremy, this isn’t going to work.”